Ship project history:
These ships would have differed from previous bait
lee misers in having a full length forecastle deck and a return was made to twin
instead of tandem rudders. They would have been handsome ships with tripod
foremast and 2 funnels. Mackensen was laid down under the 1914-15
programme, Ersatz Freya under the War estimates and the others were
ordered in April 1915. It was originally hoped to complete them from the summer
of 1917 to the autumn of 1918, and their 35cm guns would have made them
formidable antagonists. Ersatz Freya was to have been named Prinz
Eitel Friedrich; Ersatz A, later known as Ersatz Friedrich Carl, was
to have been named Fürst Bismarck.

The main armament was arranged as in Hindenburg and
the Drh LC/14 mountings allowed 20° elevation, while the 15cm were in a long
upper deck battery extending from the forward turret to the after super-firing
one. The 5 TT would have been arranged with one in the bows and two on either
broadside forward and aft of the torpedo bulkhead.

The boilers comprised 24 single-ended coal-fired and 8 double-ended
oil-fired, and were smaller than in the previous ships. Leak pumps were
increased to 8 from 5 in Hindenburg.

Ship protection:
The 300mm main belt ran from 3m forward of the fore
turret to 3m abaft the after one and tapered to 150mm at the lower edge and
240mm at the upper deck. Forward and aft the armour stopped short of the ends
and was respectively 120mm and 100mm. The barbettes were reduced to 120mm
(Ersatz A 150mm) behind the battery armour and lo 90mm behind the main belt,
while the turrets had 320mm faces, 200mm sides, 220mm rears, 180-110mm roofs
except that in Graf Spee the figures were 300mm, 200mm, 210mm, 150-100mm.
The armour deck did not extend outboard of the torpedo bulkhead amidships where
it was 60-30mm with 50mm forward and 110-80mm aft. The upper deck was 25mm over
the main belt and the forecastle deck 50-25mm over the battery. The torpedo
bulkhead was 50mm increased to 60mm by the turrets, and continued as a 30mm
splinter bulkhead to the upper deck.